Are you ready for 4G?

Suddenly, and seemingly from nowhere, we've gained a G. But what is this '4G'? and should we care about it? Is it really the cat's superfast, mobile, pajamas? And is it going to change anything?
4G means 4th generation, for starters. We begun in the 2nd generation (who knows what happened to the 1st) which meant texts and calls (how quaint), we progressed to 3G - which meant mobile internet (hello facebook anywhere!) and now the fourth generation is approaching, and it's going to be fast. Really fast.

4G promises mobile internet speeds 5-7 times quicker than the current 3G internet, and it's going to cover 98% of the UK. That means the quickest mobile downloads and streaming we've ever seen.

Currently 4G is still in relatively early days - EE are the only UK mobile provider to be offering the superfast service and of yesterday 50% of the UK has been covered. But as Vodafone and other providers ready themselves to unleash 4G it's coverage is quickly spreading.

So why should industry care? Well, 4G means people can stream a huge amount of data to their phones in a matter of minutes - using the internet on your phone will have never been so quick or easy.

It means we will be using mobile more than ever before and it means we can do more with mobile than ever before.

Industries will have to start investing more in mobile tech, because that's increasingly where our attention will be. And not only will we be consuming more content, we'll want better content. Advertising messages are going to have to be truly engaging in order to get through the filters people are developing due to a constant influx of information. Mobile content will have to not just increase in quantity, but in quality - it needs to be more innovative and exciting if it's going to stand out amongst the blur of data.

So is 4G going to change things? Yes. And should you be thinking about how it'll affect you? Definitely.